Sunday, August 3, 2014

A Native Canadian who gets it

Here's some of the piece, by Ryan Bellerose; click the link above to see the rest:

I grew up in Northern Alberta, where racism is pretty ingrained. In fact, my own grandfather on my mother’s side was more than a little bit racist against Natives (which was funny because all of his daughters married Native men and had Native kids.) One time he accused me of stealing the radio knobs off his 1977 T-Bird with the phrase “ I know Indian kids steal.” At the time, I laughed and so did my cousins, but it’s only recently I recall with some animosity that it made no sense for me to steal his stupid radio knobs. I didn’t even have a car! I have seen and dealt with overt and hidden racism for much of my adult life as well. Maybe thats why this week I finally had enough.I have started to understand that certain kinds of hate are “acceptable” while others are taboo. On a Facebook group dedicated to “peaceful rallies” I had some moronic young woman tell me “ The Jews are the bad guys, they control the banks and the media and the Arabs don’t even have tanks or planes.” I thought at first I was watching a bad YouTube video. These are the things I see on Facebook, statements so abjectly stupid that I am often at a loss to respond. I am always shocked that nobody else says “ That’s just stupid, stop spreading idiocy.”